Here's Perfection. It's been about 5 days since I updated; sorry. Happy Halloween, folks. Sorry, but this isn't Halloween-related. Didn't think of that.

Disclaimer: Don't own.

47. Perfection

When it came to some things, the usually-nonchalant Meiko was ever the perfectionist. It got annoying (to her, at least).

Meiko sat hunched over her desk, tightly gripping her pencil with beads of sweat lining her face. Her eyes were glued to the paper in front of her, which had about seven lines of writing on it. "Why did I decide to do this?" she muttered. "This is harder than I thought it would be."

"Do what?" Kaito asked, traipsing into her room. When she regarded him with her brow furrowed, he pointed behind him, saying, "The door was open."

Her expression eased, and she looked down. "This song I'm writing," she mumbled. "I don't know how the hell to rhyme this." Taking that as an invitation, Kaito walked over to the desk and stared at the paper, his expression changing when he saw the words written.

"It sounds so sweet already!" he gushed; Meiko felt herself blush.

"Th-that's not what I was looking to hear right now!"

"Oh, all right." Kaito smiled. "Why are you writing this all of a sudden, anyway?"

"I . . . I just got bored?" she tried.

He raised an eyebrow, then turned his head back to the paper. "What's the rhyme scheme?"

"Uh . . ." she paused, thinking. 'So far, it's ABAB, AABB."

"You could use 'heart' there," he suggested, pointing to a spot on the paper.

"You're right," she replied, face brightening up, and started to write.

"It looks like you worked hard," he commented as she wrote, regarding the various eraser shavings and pencil marks. "Are you going to sing this yourself?"

She dropped her pencil, apparently startled by his question. "Probably not," she said after a beat of silence.

"What?" He frowned, furrowing his eyebrows. "Well, why not?"

"Not good enough," she mumbled.

"What isn't?"

"The lyrics? The music? My voice? Maybe I'll ask Sweet Ann-san to sing it," she said. "She has awesome pronunciation."

"I'm sure it's going to sound awesome when you finish it! And you will finish it!" he interjected. "Don't even think about not being good enough! It may not be perfect, but perfection doesn't exist! Anyway, did you already figure out the instrumentals?" She nodded tentatively, and he grinned. "Great! Can I hear how it sounds so far?"

"Fine, I guess so," she sighed, getting up to walk to her closet. She returned with an acoustic guitar that had seen better days.

"Wow!" Kaito's eyes widened. "You play guitar?"

"Used to," she said. "I don't really play now, though." With that, she settled in her chair, unearthing pages of sheet music from a drawer. She began to play, stopping when she had reached the second verse. "That's all I've got so far, lyrics-wise," she admitted, and looked up at Kaito humbly. "Wait, are you . . . why are you blushing?" she asked, suddenly startled.

"Y-your lyrics were . . . never mind. It was so beautiful!" he gushed. "I didn't know you were capable of writing something like that!"

She narrowed her eyes at him, her face slightly tinged crimson. "What are you implying?"

"Nothing!" he was quick to blurt out. "Will you show me when it's done?"

"Fine," she said, her words contradicting her inner feeling of success. "But I need to concentrate, so move it!" When he left, she remembered to close and lock the door.

Within a week after finishing writing it, Meiko had not only finished recording the song, but had also completed filming of the promotional video to go with it, and was ready to present it to Kaito and those who had also wanted to see it. The group that sat in front of the TV screen was bigger than had been expected; word had spread either by osmosis or by Kaito. Naturally, Meiko was somewhat nervous, and after she had finished pacing in her room, sat down in the free space between Kaito and Miriam.

"Just . . . watch something else in the meantime," she said, trying to make the situation less of a big deal. "If we miss it, you all can watch it later on the computer, or something," she shrugged, attempting to appear nonchalant.

"What are you saying? It's almost on!" Kaito exclaimed.

"What channel is it on?" Miku asked, smiling and holding the remote.

"Four-twenty-eight."

"It's on four-sixty-two," Kaito corrected. "She's lying."

Miku just smiled and changed the channel. "Is this it?" she asked as the channel displayed a black silhouette and the introduction of a song.

"That's it!" Kaito squeaked, nearly jumping out of his seat. "I'm so excited!"

"You're overreacting is what you are," Meiko muttered, burying her face in a cushion as her strong yet calming voice filled the room. The group watched intently through the entire seven-and-a-half minutes, genuinely applauding when it was done.

Kaito removed the pillow, eyes sparkling with tears, and looked Meiko directly in the eyes. "That was so beautiful you don't even know, and the closest thing to perfection I've ever seen!" he sobbed. As Meiko looked around the room, she noticed, to her surprise, that most of the rest of the room had also been crying.

"I guess," Meiko said, her face growing red.

"I'm serious!" Kaito insisted, supported by the rest of the group nodding and voicing their approval.

"Okay," she said. "I'm kinda hungry," she lied as an excuse to leave the room so as to hide her embarrassingly crimson cheeks.

Secretly, the perfectionist in Meiko couldn't have been happier.

This takes place around the same time as number 64. I don't know in which order; however, the latter half of this is on the 29th of November. Why so specific? A certain Meiko song (by shu-tP) was released on that day, which is the song in question here, and fits pretty much everything this said it did, with the exception of the rhyme scheme thing. Thus, you should be able to figure out which song it is. If not, I'll just say in the next chapter or something.
It seems a few of Meiko's traits I have taken from myself. Like . . . everything in this chapter.